Monday, July 9, 2007

On Location: Alaska

Not sure anyone is reading this blog since I am on a cruise with the family members that I know read it. Alaska is very pretty, but I have not had much interaction with the sports world to produce a quality post. There was an incident yesterday however that was entertaining.

I was in a jacuzzi with family members and noticed a girl running on the running track above at a quick rate. We told a cousin that is single he should go up there and run with her. He declined saying he had seen her before and thought she was 13. From our vantage point we thought she could be 17 or 18. Anyway, that is not the interesting part. This girl was dressed like a big-time runner and running at a speed rarely seen for girls on cruise ships. This is not a knock on girls it is a knock on the speed of grandmas walking around the boat.

There was either a dad or coach (likely both) intently watching her and yelling at her to go faster as she was across the boat. All of us in the jacuzzi immediately thought he was one of those over-the-top dads. This girl was on vacation and dad/coach was as serious as any coach I will see in Eugene next summer at the Trials. I'm not sure if that is healthy parenting. Oh yeah, the dad helped her with her stretches. Some of which I had never seen before. My only guess for why this dad/coach was intent on making his daughter run, and run faster, was because he wants his daughter to be able to run at the University of Oregon. (There has not been clarification if this girl will be entering college in 5 years or 1 year. Trying to get the younger cousins to clarify that.) The Ducks only accept the elite and that appeared to be the level the dad/wanted for his daughter.